PERGSA has identified and trained National and Regional specialists to form specialist thematic teams, or Working Groups, that receive training in necessary skills in order to carry out activities without the need for external assistance.

PERSGA's Public Awareness and Participation Working Group consists of two to three national experts from each MemberState. PERSGA has conducted several training events to raise the professional capacities of these representatives in relation to public awareness:

Date

Venue

Content

June 2000

Cairo

Creating a vision of environmental public awareness programmes.

Oct. 2000

Amman

A two-week training workshop in association with an IUCN conference. Special training from the IUCN Commission on Education and Communication and the IUCN Marine Programme; a workshop on project planning and management; and a workshop on effective presentation skills and PowerPoint.

Oct. 2001

Jeddah

The conduct of local social marketing studies and how to identify, prepare and submit micro-grant proposals for relevant projects.

May 2002

Jeddah

Environmental public awareness and communication (in partnership with ALECSO and with the cooperation of NCWCD)

July 2002

Amman and the Dana Reserve

Effective communication for biodiversity conservation. A ‘toolkit’ was developed that includes a training manual and guidelines. Technical assistance was provided by the IUCN Commission for Education and Communication.

“Communication for Biodiversity in the RSGA Region”

As a result of the training activities, PERSGA was able to produce, incollaboration with IUCN, a training Kit “Communication for Biodiversity in the RSGA Region”.The kit is a living document that will be updated regularly to include regional case-studies.A core team of the PAP Board have since been trained as trainers to further educating a wider audience on the public awareness aspects of conservation.

Effective Communication for Environmental Conservation: A Manual For and By Communicators in the Region; Trainee Edition[1]

“Now I feel optimistic to train other trainers working in the field of environment awareness.” Ali Farah – NE Somalia

“I greatly benefited from the PAP activities and gained additional expertise in many areas. I was able to apply these skills in other aspects of my work and was able to communicate them to others” Naif Shalhoub – KSA

“Although I learn a lot, unfortunately, I was not given the opportunity to apply my knowledge through my work. My gained knowledge is not utilized” Husain – KSA

“Our horizons have been expanded to a regional level, as we have implementing each activity with a regional vision.” Jamil Saeed-Yemen

“As a whole I have better ability to design and implement public awareness activities in addition to better problem solving skills.” Ali Yousef – NE Somalia